Development of a single-shot third-order cross-correlator for picosecond laser systems

Large temporal window and high-resolution single-shot cross-correlator with two separate measurement channels

“…SSCC usually relies on time-to-space encoding that converts the temporal contrast of the under-test pulse into the spatial contrast of the correlating beam. The spatially distributed correlating beam can be measured by a parallel array detector such as charge-coupled device (CCD) [24][25][26][27][29][30][31] and fiber-array-mediated photomultiplier [23,28,32]. Time-tospace encoding can be enabled by using a clean sampling pulse to interact with the under-test pulse in a wide-beam noncollinear geometry.…”

“…Time-tospace encoding can be enabled by using a clean sampling pulse to interact with the under-test pulse in a wide-beam noncollinear geometry. The sampling pulse should have higher pulse contrast than the under-test pulse, which can be generated by under-test pulse pumped secondharmonic generation (SHG) [24][25][26][30][31][32], optical parametric amplification (OPA) [28] and four-wave mixing [27]. The generated sampling pulse interacts with the under-test pulse in a nonlinear crystal, where sum-frequency generation (SFG) [24][25][26][27][28]31,32] or different-frequency generation (DFG) [30] is commonly used to generate the correlating beam that carries the https://doi.org/10.1017/hpl.2022.28 Published online by Cambridge University Press contrast information of the under-test pulse.…”

“…Dynamic range Technical characteristic iTEOX, France [25] 18 ps 0.018 ps 10 8 self-referenced spectral interferometry RAL, UK [26] 36 ps 0.09 ps third-order cross-correlation SIOM, CAS [27] 65 ps 0.16 ps 10 11 fourth-order auto-correlation…”

“…Window Resolution Dynamic range Technical characteristic iTEOX, France [25] 18 ps 0.018 ps 10 8 Self-referenced spectral interferometry RAL, UK [26] 36 ps 0.09 ps -Third-order cross-correlation SIOM, CAS [27] 65 ps 0.16 ps 10 11 Fourth-order auto-correlation Fudan & SJTU [28] 70 ps 0.9 ps 10 9 High-order quasi-phase-matching cross-correlation XIOPM, CAS [29] 42.9 ps 1.95 ps 10 6 Optical Kerr gate LANL, USA [30] 50 ps 4 ps 10 7 Tilted pulse front Rochester, USA [31] 200 ps 6. 26 operate in a single-shot mode (the time intervals of pulses are typically several tens of minutes), a single-shot crosscorrelator (SSCC) is a must for an image of a pulse contrast in a single exposure [23,24] . Furthermore, the SSCC measurement is also necessary even for repetitive lasers because the laser noise varies from one pulse shot to the next, while the DSCC measurement can only give an average result of repetitive detections that may deviate from the real pulse contrast to some degree.…”

“…The sampling pulse should have higher pulse contrast than the under-test pulse, which can be generated by under-test pulse pumped secondharmonic generation (SHG) [24][25][26][30][31][32] , optical parametric amplification (OPA) [28] and four-wave mixing [27] . The generated sampling pulse interacts with the under-test pulse in a nonlinear crystal, where sum-frequency generation (SFG) [24][25][26][27][28]31,32] or different-frequency generation (DFG) [30] is commonly used to generate the correlating beam that carries the contrast information of the under-test pulse. To facilitate online application in practical petawatt-class lasers, the SSCC device should have easy accessibility and high stability.…”